RE Lil Lou, I woke up fretting about my post. I appreciate your thoughtful reply to my outrageousness... First off I am sorry to hear you were fretting about your post to me. I took it as having the intention of being helpful.
I took it as I do when I watch the Arab news, then the Israeli news. I do the "what if I were the OP, how would it look" what is right or wrong with this picture.
No, your post was not outrageous because it was phrased in a way that was not just judgemental and had elements of "try to look at it this way" in a beneficial way for me. Not she is right and you are wrong.
Thinking about stopping what I do/want, boy that is difficult. If I stopped having boundaries or allowed BB to do what ever she wanted to do/think/say, I might just as well be single. Maybe another way I can put this is, If I mostly sit there and let BB say/do things her way then I start feeling like I am being dumped on. It might be like lemon aid where someone keeps adding lemon juice with adding more water and sugar. There is a point where even the thirstiest person starts saying "no thanks, I will pass."
Both kinds of things (i.e., her general pickiness about the world, and her directing that pickiness at you) come out of her personality. IOW there doesn't seem to be any malice in her that she is expressing with her pickiness. It's really a bad habit. OK, I can think of it that way. It works where I am not involved in what she does. I have to see it that way more.
Where it effects me, is when I do things for her or do as a couple or do for myself and she has an opinion. I don't want the last sentence to be a "but" sentence, just saying I haven't worked out things in that area.
<side note> I was reading, that a lot of men seem to resist change. It's not because they don't want to change so much as it is because men see the words about how to change on paper, or hear them but have not figured out how to implement the changes to reach a goal. Also men and I suspect women equally don't make some changes because they are concerned about not getting things right.
So, not changing or making changes is not so much as resting the changes as it is not knowing how to tailor or utilize the changes to fit their personality and the OP's personality. They are also sometimes overly concerned with the fall-out some changes might induce into the R.
Of course, some of the fears and resistance to changing is unfounded.>end of side note<
Lou, you have no choice but to ALLOW her to do/think/say whatever she wants. Do you see that? Correcting her does not CHANGE her behavior. I am OK with BB thinking what she thinks. I am not OK with having to listen to it as much I do some days. When I do that, I withdraw from the R and I don't see that (withdrawing) as a good thing for the R, but a necessary thing for me. I have asked BB to a bit more positive.
Correcting her does not CHANGE her behavior. Sometimes the correcting was meant to help get her out of her mood that all of these negative thing she sees are being looked upon to much. I wanted BB to see more of the good things in her life.
"then I might as well be single." The assumption was, if I am to listen to BB state her opinions and be totally detached, that is too much like living with someone on the street or someone I work with. What happened to shared values and interests. I worked with people I had little in common with and was OK with that situation. I would never live with them. There would be too much emotional distance to form a love relationship. (Just my observations.)
Hidden in that statement seems to be the assumption that because you are married, it is your RIGHT, possibly even your OBLIGATION to correct her and NOT allow her to do/think/say whatever she wants I don't think it is my right or obligation to correct BB. Mostly I am feeling so distant and out of snyc from what I/we felt pre BB's heavy shopping addiction times.
Like I said before, the M is long on obligation, what is proper, mixed with some good times of EC and Love, I would like to make the good times last longer.
you can change your BEHAVIOR in response to her BEHAVIOR and things happen-- like with the Dog Whisperer. I am watching re-runs of re-runs and learning a few things that apply to human relationships.
okay, THIS is the area where you can draw some boundaries... And you have in the past. And if I recall correctly, they've WORKED, in a limited way. Yes, sometimes I/we get enough things right or going in a really good direction. It is usually when I am less sensitive and less caring about what BB says or thinks. It's on days when I feel it is my turn and BB's feelings don't matter so much.
If you could just TRY (and I'm not saying it will be easy) to focus on traits of hers that you admire-- and I'm sure you can find a few-- and blow off, yes ignore, the blather, the rambling, the complaints, OK. I will do this again.
Again, Sorry this I woke up fretting about my post happened to you. Thanks for your concern and help.
I am out of steam right now. I had thoughts about other parts of your post Lil, but some of "my" thoughts are conflict with each other, and I have to do a customer job.
